


Leaves of Stone

by monetstcroix



Series: After the End [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Remus Lupin, Coming Out, Everybody Lives, Gay Sirius Black, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Remus Lupin Lives, Sirius Black Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29097441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monetstcroix/pseuds/monetstcroix
Summary: Nearly a year after the Battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort's defeat, there are still a few things that Sirius needs to work out. Luckily, he has time.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: After the End [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174220
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98





	Leaves of Stone

The thing, the itchy thing about living in peacetime that constantly grinds on his bones, is that it’s fucking _boring._

Oh, it’s a good kind of boring, Sirius supposes. Knowing the shape of the days to come, having some sort of assurance that you’ll live to see the end of the week or the month or the year. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that now there’s no constant flow of adrenaline running like fire through his veins, sun-hot, sparking him to _act,_ to do _something._

He tries to get the constant itch at his fingers, the ever-present tug at his feet out in other ways, of course. He’s not bloody daft.

First of all, there’s Harry, who Sirius takes to Quidditch games and the like when Harry isn’t occupied with Auror training. That’s not so boring, finally having the chance to spend some proper time with his godson without having to stick anyone’s head into a fireplace or mumble into mirrors.

And when Harry’s busy, Sirius spends time working at the Cairngorms Magicale Creature Reserve. Hagrid had gotten him on it, mourning the loss of his hippogriffs from the Hogwarts curriculum. At McGonagall’s behest, they had all been carted off to the reserve where they were free to fight, fly, and hunt all they liked. Sirius regularly brings Hagrid news of Buckbeak and the like, which always cheers the chap up although Hagrid’s good mood does little to improve his cooking. Sirius hadn’t thought anything could be worse than the thin tasteless gruel they served in Azkaban, but the company of Rubeus Hagrid is far preferable to that of any dementor.

Then he’s got his regular social engagements, which primarily consist of dinners with Ted and Andromeda or Tonks or Remus, when he’s not occupied teaching, or one of the other Order members. _Former_ Order members, really, although he hasn’t quite gotten used to adding on that adjective yet. On top of that, Molly Weasley occasionally manages to badger him into coming over for dinner. Sirius isn’t quite sure whether she pities him or simply considers him an extended part of the family now that Harry and Ginny seem to be getting serious, but her cooking’s decent when she isn’t trying to pester Sirius about settling down.

It’s not that he hasn’t tried, is the thing. Why, just last week, he’d gone out for dinner with Hestia Jones. They’d had a roaring time, chatting about how it was going for her playing Keeper with the Falcons. It had all gone grandly until she’d tried to lean in for a kiss. That little motion forward of hers had made something shift in him, something heavy like a stone that simply said _no._ So, he’d pulled back before he could think twice, leaving her snogging nothing but thin air. Blinking rapidly, her cheeks had turned pink and she’d hastily started on an apology as she sat up ramrod straight. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you weren't…”

“We’re mates,” Sirius had said when she hadn’t shown a sign of finishing her sentence. She’d nodded, her face breaking into a relieved smile, and given him a brisk hug, then easily moved on to discussing the recent game the Falcons had played against the Cannons.

Most of his outings with women had gone similarly, although a couple had said more unkind things to him.

Having a drink with someone didn’t mean you wanted to snog them, he reflects moodily, staring down at his mug of steaming hot black tea. And it wasn’t his fault that there weren’t any birds that he really fancied. Shame, he wouldn’t mind giving the whole relationship thing a go since he’d never really gotten a good chance at it.

There’s a knock at the door. Moony. Even though Remus could have simply taken the floo from his rooms in Hogwarts, he liked to take the long way and walk all the way to Sirius’s bungalow at the very edge of Hogsmeade.

“Moony,” Sirius grins, throwing open the door. Remus is standing on the front step, his cheeks ruddy with the cold and his greying hair slightly windswept. He’s smiling broadly despite the coming full moon. Warmth spreads through Sirius at the sight of him, making the early March chill blowing in through the open door seem nonexistent.

“How’re things?” Sirius asks, leading him to the kitchen where he gets the bright red kettle going with a spell.

“Alright,” Remus says. “I just covered the lesson on lycanthropy with the third-years this morning. Rather ironic, having it fall on the full moon today.”

“Did you tell them about how much certain werewolves fancy a cup of tea with biscuits and a good book?”

Remus chuckles. “No, unfortunately not. I missed that point on the lesson plan.”

Sirius had never thought Remus could come to speak of his lycanthropy so casually with anyone outside of the Marauders, letting out what he had locked so closely to his chest for so many years to anyone passing by. It nearly brings forth a tinge of jealousy but that pales in comparison to seeing the easy smile on Remus’s face, his brow unfurrowed by worry.

The kettle whistles its finish, so Sirius gets a mustard yellow mug from the cupboard and brews tea for Remus just the way he likes it, with extra sugar and milk.

“Thank you,” Remus says, sitting down at the table across from Sirius. Sirius can see the slight grey bags under his eyes, the slight drawnness of Remus’s cheeks, but it’s a far cry from the days he used to spend ill in bed before the full.

They’ve got a few hours before moonrise. Plenty of time for conversation, before Remus goes to what’s become his bedroom and transforms, Sirius by his side. Once, Sirius had brought up the idea of running through the forest like they used to, but Remus had simply shaken his head with a tense set to his jaw and that had been that. Even though he had been the one to bring it up, Sirius hadn’t felt much like pushing back. It might be more fun than simply spending the night as two snoozing canines on the rug, but it can’t ever be the same as it was all those years ago with the stag and the rat, four boys with no idea of what was to come.

Thinking about the old days always brings forth a bitter melancholy that sits heavily in Sirius’s mouth, so he takes another sip of his honey-sweetened tea to clear his head. He decides to move on to something much more current. Perhaps Remus is having more luck on the dating front than he is.

“Say, Remus, fancy any birds lately?”

Remus shakes his head, innocently sipping at his tea, but he’s very definitely not meeting Sirius’s eyes. No, he’s giving a fine effort at pretending that he is, but he’s really staring at the clock right behind Sirius’s head. A trick that could get past anyone except another Marauder.

“Don’t tell me you finally shagged Tonks,” Sirius says, fairly sure he hadn’t imagined all those heated looks she used to give him during Order meetings. Remus laughs and shakes his head easily, no veneer of innocence this time.

“No, no, can you imagine?”

“Then who?”

“No women,” Remus says quickly, suddenly becoming very interested in studying the color of his tea.

Sirius blinks. There's something about the way he phrased that, something about what he’s not saying. That’s Remus Lupin, leaving the truth to the margins, barely touching on it with his own words. Not lying, not really. So, what’s left between the spaces of his words, then?

“A… bloke?” Sirius guesses.

Remus sputters, nearly choking on his tea. So that’s a yes, an affirmation that squeezes Sirius’s chest tight with what he doesn’t know.

“You fancy blokes? I didn’t know you were…” Sirius frowns, searching for the right way to say it, tripping over too many words he’s heard used in mocking tones, and finally settling on one Tonks has used a few times. “Gay, is it?”

“Er, no, bisexual,” Remus mumbles, his voice very small.

“Oh,” Sirius says. Tonks is the same way, he thinks. Besides the glances she used to throw in Remus’s direction, she’d mentioned having both boyfriends and girlfriends in the past. It’s normal now, he thinks. Surely something that would draw the fury of Walburga Black and nearly anything that does that is a good thing in his book. “Who’s this bloke, then?”

“No one you know, really,” Remus says, still looking down at his mug. “Septima set me up with her brother. Er, it was only one date and we mutually decided it wouldn’t work out.”

“Oh,” Sirius says again, and just like that, the clench around his chest eases. “You know, Moony, you’ve got to let me scope these blokes out first. Make sure they’re worthy of you.”

Remus laughs, but the noise still sounds a little forced. He’s not bad looking, Sirius thinks, not for the first time. Although Remus often complains about the grey threading its way through his hair and the odd gold glint to his brown eyes when the full moon nears, Sirius thinks it all suits him. He’s sure that men who are in the business of fancying other men would think that Remus is a quite handsome bloke.

“Alright,” Remus says. “What about you?”

“I’m not…” Sirius starts, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Are you seeing anyone? I’m sure there’s no shortage of interested women.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sirius says. Somehow this is not half as interesting as talking about Remus. The odd obstruction in his chest, the heavy stone, seems to settle once more. He forces his words out around it. “Went out last week with Hestia, you know the one, but it just didn’t click, I suppose. Never seems to.”

Remus nods. “If you’re not interested in dating anyone, don’t feel like you have to.”

“But I do want to,” Sirius frowns. He does want that, someone to come home to every day, someone to _be_ with, in every way possible. “There just aren’t any women I properly fancy, is all.”

“I’m sure someone will come along soon for you, Padfoot. Maybe you just need to give it a little time,” Remus smiles genuinely, eyes crinkling up. Sirius is hit by a wave of gratitude for Remus, how earnest and _kind_ he can be, even as war has tried to sharpen him into a weapon. But he’s done the hard work of blunting himself, being gentle when he does not have to, consciously practicing patience. Sirius does not think that he will ever be able to do that.

Soon, the thin sunlight filtering in through the windows dims completely and Remus takes his wolfsbane, courtesy of one Horace Slughorn. Although Sirius had never much liked the man, with his constant sycophancy, it’s difficult not to appreciate his efforts in leveraging his numerous contacts to improve the effectiveness of wolfsbane and ultimately reducing the side effects of fatigue and illness. Snape had made no such efforts.

The next morning, Remus is off, walking back to Hogwarts after a breakfast of toast and hot tea. As he clears up, Sirius thinks. He doesn't quite feel like getting his motorbike from where it's parked out back and flying to the reserve. What then? 

Inspiration, in the form of bright pink hair, strikes him. Tonks has Wednesdays and Thursdays off in exchange for taking on patrol duties Saturdays and Sundays. Might be time for a spot of bothering Nymphadora Tonks.

* * *

The Three Broomsticks is fairly empty as expected and they find a table close to the hearth. The flames cast an orange glow over the caramel-hued curls Tonks has got on today.

Sirius takes a long draw of amber ale, warming him from the inside out, before setting his cup down on the rough-hewn wooden table with a _thunk_ and scattering little foamy flecks of ale on the wood.

“How’d you know you fancy girls?”

Tonks nearly spits out her mouthful of butterbeer on him but luckily manages to swallow most of it down with little incident. She wipes the rest of it off her face with the sleeve of her fuzzy purple jumper and laughs.

“Same way you did, I guess.”

“How’d you know?” Sirius presses, ignoring the weight settling in his chest, the one whispering _no, I don’t think so._ It’s only natural curiosity, he tells himself. He just wants to know more about this business and Remus is too occupied with work to tell him.

“I think I always sort of knew,” Tonks says thoughtfully. “There was a girl in fifth year I fancied, so I asked her to Hogsmeade. Was a disaster at first since I took her to Madame Puddifoot’s and nearly knocked the whole table over, drinks and all. But then, after Madame Puddifoot kicked us out, she led me to the alley behind it, all nice and secluded, and that was that.”

“That was that,” Sirius repeats to himself. “You like blokes too?”

“I do, yeah,” Tonks says. Now she’s set down her bottle of butterbeer on the table, watching him. The way she’s looking at him, her brown eyes sharp, makes him feel rather like he’s under interrogation.

“So everyone works it out like that?” Sirius mutters around the lip of his glass, feeling exposed. "When they're in school?"

“No,” Tonks says. “A few people do, more and more nowadays, but there are plenty who didn’t work it out until they were older. We have a, I guess you’d call it a group, at the Ministry. There are quite a few people there who didn’t figure it out properly until they were forty or fifty. Some people never even find a word for it.”

Merlin, forty or fifty! He’s already thirty-nine years old and a third of that time was spent in Azkaban with too many more years in Grimmauld Place. Sometimes he feels like he’s only twenty despite the thin lines around his eyes, the silver strands in his hair, and the ache in his knees on cold mornings.

“How did it go with Hestia the other week?” Tonks asks, too damn perceptive for Sirius’s own good.

“Fine, alright, we just decided to be mates,” Sirius mutters, a heaviness growing in his chest again.

Tonks nods, taking another sip of her beer, and then continues, all too innocently. “You know, my friend Ian is single…”

Sirius’s heart is suddenly pounding, beating like he’s just run the length of a Quidditch field.

“What?” he says, even though he’s heard her perfectly well. There’s no noise in here other than the crackle of the fire and Rosmerta chatting with a customer at the bar.

“My friend Ian,” Tonks repeats, slowly and clearly. “Works in the Auror Office too. He was just telling me the other day that he hasn’t had any luck meeting blokes. He fancies the tall, dark, and handsome types, your sort of thing.”

Sirius’s head is spinning, like he’s drank much more than a glass of amber ale. The idea of him going out on a, a date with this Ian bloke, a proper date with holding hands and proper snogging, strikes him speechless. His mouth is dry and if he wasn’t already sitting down, he thinks that he would need to.

“Sirius? You alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Sirius mutters. He looks up at the person in front of him, the cousin whose life he has missed most of, this kid who already seems to have lived so much more of life than he has. Besides the hair, Tonks looks like Andromeda today, with her full mouth and high cheekbones. Like him. “I just… I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Tonks says, her voice soft. She reaches out and pats his hand where it’s lying on the table. “I’m here.”

Sirius smiles, filled with affection for Nymphadora Tonks.

“Enough of me. Now what’s been going on with you?”

* * *

Remus comes home for the weekend, not having much grading and no rounds to do in the weekend. If he’s caught on that McGonagall always gives him the weekends before and after a full moon off, he hasn’t commented on it. Probably he just forces himself to pretend that it’s some sort of happy accident happening month after month so he doesn’t have to feel guilty about it. Sirius thinks he can feel enough gratitude for Minerva McGonagall for the two of them combined, anyway.

“Did you go to the reserve?” Remus asks over dinner, some biryani from Andromeda that Sirius has heated up with a spell.

“Yeah,” Sirius says around a mouthful of rice and veggies. “Spent some time healing this griffin’s leg up. His name’s Godfrey. Godfrey the griffin. He’s nearly right as rain, I’ll head over next week to see how he’s healing up.”

“That’s good to hear. I think that you’re really good at this,” Remus smiles. He always enjoys hearing stories of Sirius’s work at the reserve. Sirius reckons that if Remus didn’t have the teaching post then he’d probably be working there too. They could stay together in one of the little cottages that dots the Cairngorms, spending their days wrangling knarls or nifflers and their nights together, just like this. The thought sparks a fall of other ones, like an avalanche, thoughts of other ways of being _together._ Sirius’s face heats. He’s only curious, that’s all.

“So, you and blokes,” he says gracelessly, setting his fork down. “How long have you known about this, er, bisexual thing?”

“Er,” Remus pales, staring down at his plate as if an escape from the conversation is to be found in his peas and carrots. “Since, er, just after we finished at Hogwarts.”

“But that’s…” Sirius frowns. “That’s twenty years. And you never told us?”

“Er,” Remus says again, poking at his rice. “I, well, James found out.”

“He found out?”

“I had been seeing a man, who I met… well, he was also a werewolf, and somehow James got it out of me,” Remus says. “He never had a problem with it… I would have said something to you, but it was just before…” He does not have to specify further. They had stopped talking to each other late that spring, Peter’s lies effectively walling them off from each other. James had been able to reach across that gap in his usual trusting manner, but it had taken his death, twelve years, and an escaped rat for Sirius and Remus to bridge the chasm between them.

“Okay,” Sirius says, slowly and carefully. He inhales and then, on the exhale, continues. “What about after that? When I came back?”

“It just never came up,” Remus shrugs and then a trace of wry dryness enters his voice. “I think we had things that were rather more important to worry about than my love life.”

“Well, now that’s all done with.”

“Hence the worrying,” Remus smiles thinly. Sirius nearly wants to protest, he’s not _worrying,_ but he’s not quite sure what to do instead so he simply takes another heaping forkful of food and shoves it into in his mouth in the way he only does around Remus. When he has lunch with Andromeda and Ted or the Weasleys, or even Tonks or Harry who’d just take it in their stride, he always has to force himself to eat slowly and carefully. Eat in the way that a man who had not been starving for years would eat. But he doesn’t have to do that around Remus, plan out every little motion and movement. After all, Remus had also spent years with nothing but emptiness to keep him company.

Sirius looks up at Remus, at this careful, gentle man who lets Sirius see all his rough edges.

“Think I might go on a date with Tonks’s mate. She, er, she said she reckoned I was his type.”

Remus actually drops his fork, the _clang_ on his plate the only sound between them for several seconds. When he speaks, his voice is careful, his face deliberately casual. “I didn’t know that you were interested in men.”

“Why not give it a go, right?” Sirius says. He is oddly nervous, his heart beating fast. But this is Remus, who’s seen the worst of him several times over and is still here. Suddenly, all Sirius wants is this little table, so small their feet are touching, with the two of them sitting at it and nothing else.

Remus nods. “I think you should. I’ve wondered…”

“You’ve wondered what?” Sirius does not like this. The idea of someone knowing something like this about him before he’s properly worked it out for himself, telling him of all those times that it was just clear to anyone with a working brain that he was bent, seems a massive violation. If it was anyone except Remus, he’d already be bristling at them.

“I can’t… god knows, I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like, to spend twelve years of my life in Azkaban. From where I am, it seems that it puts you in this odd place, where you’ve gone through much worse than most do in their entire lives. But you haven’t had very much time to live life on your own terms,” Remus stops, his voice briefly faltering, and Sirius realizes that his eyes are red-rimmed. It is not at all what Sirius had expected he’d say. Something is unfurling in Sirius’s chest, budding out of cracking stone. “I know it’s easy to treat life like a fixed series of milestones, god knows I’ve felt that way, but I… I hope you don’t feel like you’re behind or anything like that. Because you really aren’t, Sirius, not as long as you’re happy where you are.”

“Oh,” Sirius says. There seems to be something in his eye as well, something making him blink rapidly. “I am… I’m happy here, with you.”

“And that makes me so happy, Sirius,” Remus beams, his eyes shining slightly.

“Good. Good, then,” Sirius says briskly, sitting up straight. “So you reckon I’ll have as much luck with the blokes as I do the birds?”

“Oh, more than,” Remus says, but he looks back down at his plate instead of at Sirius. 

* * *

As soft yellow morning light slowly blankets his bedroom, Sirius lays awake, thinking.

Before Azkaban, he had not gone out with women much. Oh, he’d had a few proper tumbles at Hogwarts and after, before the war had consumed everything. They hadn’t been bad, in the way that it was nice to have someone else’s warm body against yours, but not much more than that. None of that all-consuming infatuation or true love that James constantly talked of.

Sirius had always simply done the deed, made sure she had a good time too, then patted her on the back, put his pants back on, and went off on his motorbike to the pub. No, he hadn’t even been interested in asking Florence Fawley on an actual date even though James had said that she was probably the second most fit girl in their year. After Lily, of course.

Other men, though… Sirius rolls over, thinking of Caradoc Dearborn. How Sirius had constantly found ways to show up to all the Hufflepuff Quidditch matches in sixth and seventh year to catch sight of what he’d told himself were Dearborn’s Beater skills. Scoping out the competition, so to speak, even though he’d been kicked off the Quidditch team after letting the secret of the Willow slip to Snape. But Dearborn had been utter shit at Quidditch anyway, Morgana rest him. As for the rest of him… Sirius exhales into his pillow, remembering the times that Dearborn’s smile and shiny blond hair and, Merlin, his _arse_ had just happened to slip into Sirius’s head while he’d had a hand down his pants behind the hangings of his bed in Gryffindor Tower, groaning into his pillow. He might do it again now, if it wasn’t for the way he kept remembering how Dorcas had looked when she’d said that Caradoc had disappeared without a trace, how they’d all known that, at best, he was dead. And then Dorcas had been killed two weeks later by Voldemort himself.

Thoughts of Dorcas and Caradoc and James and Lily and everyone else and how they could have been here with him and Remus if things had gone just a bit differently always bring the creep of crushing darkness. A slow suffocation by his own thoughts until something shakes him out of his head, like a roaring hippogriff or the laugh of the person he’s having tea with. He doesn’t have to be alone with his thoughts now, not anymore.

“Moony!” Sirius shouts, pushing himself up and swinging his legs off the bed. “Breakfast!”

Remus comes fifteen minutes later, rubbing his sleep-mussed hair as he yawns. There’s still the pink imprint of rumbled bed sheets on his cheek, criss-crossing the scars. Sirius smiles, depositing a slice of toast and eggs onto a chipped red plate, then pushes the plate into Remus’s hands.

“It’s the weekend,” Remus protests even as he sits down at the kitchen table and starts eating.

“If I didn’t wake you up, you’d spend half the day in bed,” Sirius points out, setting down a cup of steaming hot tea in front of Remus. “Lazy wolf.”

“Rude dog,” Remus retorts but he is smiling crookedly, gold-brown eyes fond as he looks up at Sirius. Sirius is hit with the dizzying realization that he wants every single morning to be exactly like this. Waking Remus up, laughing at his sleepy bleariness, making him breakfast, and—

“Alright?” Remus asks. Sirius abruptly realizes that he has just been staring at Remus for several seconds in complete silence.

“Yeah,” Sirius says quickly, sitting down across from Remus. As Remus eats, taking small bites out of the buttered toast and slowly chewing his eggs, Sirius thinks, letting his own cup of tea go cold.

Maybe if he’d worked this out when he was younger, several years younger, he would have immediately gone for blokes like himself. Blokes who were unrestrained, who liked to have fun and rarely had second thoughts about anything. But he’s not that man anymore, not really. If he could even have been called one back then, verging on the unknowable line between boyhood and manhood. The older he gets, the longer he spends out of Azkaban, the clearer it becomes that he was barely more than a boy when the world was torn away from him. Sometimes he still feels like one, like the new world he’s been dropped into is too much for him.

And now… Sirius looks up at Remus. The grey that is most of his hair now, his kind lined brown eyes, the way that he always looks at Sirius as if he really truly cares—no, not _if._ After two wars, Sirius is sure that when Remus is at his side, they can make it through anything together.

Remus gets up to take his plate to the sink and Sirius follows, leaning against the side of the counter as Remus washes the dish the muggle way, soaping it up and rinsing it off under the spout before placing it into the drying rack, deliberation in every movement. When he turns back to the table, Sirius stops him with a hand on his arm.

“Hmm?” Remus murmurs, still looking rumpled in that sleep-soft way. And, as warmth blooms in his chest, Sirius knows. He puts his other hand on Remus’s other shoulder, pulling him closer. Even those simple touches make Sirius’s heart speed up, filling his head with nothing but thoughts of how Remus feels under his hands.

“Padfoot…” Remus starts, suddenly seeming much more awake. His eyes are dark, flickering to Sirius’s lips before making eye contact with him as Remus tries to force his face into some semblance of indifference. Sirius might be new to this business of properly fancying blokes, to being bent, but he knows what _that_ means. “Sirius. I know you’re, er, figuring things out…”

“Already worked out that I want you here with me,” Sirius says. He moves the hand on Remus’s shoulder up, over the woolly edge of his jumper and to the warm, slightly rough skin of Remus’s neck. Even that touch has his heart beating, blood thrumming with need in a way that he’s never really properly felt before. He strokes a thumb over the join of Remus’s neck and jaw and Remus nearly presses into his hand before pulling away from Sirius. He steps backward, two neat little steps, and Sirius lets his hands fall away.

“But how do you want me, Sirius?” Remus sighs, staring down at his feet. He wouldn’t have to look away if the answer wasn’t staring him right in the face.

“How do _you_ want me?” Sirius returns. Even though there’s little more he wants than to pull Remus into his arms again, he locks his hands behind his back and forces himself to stay rooted to the spot. Remus doesn’t respond, just continues staring down at his socks. They’re mismatched as usual since Remus never bothers with folding his socks, just tosses them all into one big pile in his drawer. One of them is turquoise with little white owls on it and the other is striped red and yellow. Sirius sighs. This bloody, beautiful man. “Remus, tell me you don’t want me.”

“We said we wouldn’t lie to each other ever again,” Remus finally says, crossing his arms and looking away.

Sirius steps forward, one big stride, and Remus looks up at him.

“Then don’t.”

“I know you’re, er, still figuring things out,” Remus murmurs, still all folded in on himself. Sirius is struck with the need to get his hands and mouth all over Remus and completely undo him. “I don’t want to just be a… some sort of test.”

“You aren’t,” Sirius says, leaning his head forward and resting it on Remus’s shoulder. A few seconds later, one of Remus’s hands comes up to stroke Sirius’s back, rubbing little circles into it. “You’re my best mate. My one and only Remus Moony Lupin.”

“Then does that make you my Padfoot?” he hears Remus say, a low note of amusement in his voice. Sirius pulls away, looking Remus in the face. He’s smiling a little now, although he’s still watching Sirius carefully.

“I don’t know, does it?” Sirius asks, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

Remus huffs out a laugh, something that sounds like _only you,_ before leaning forward and kissing Sirius on the mouth. It’s only a press of lips in the way that the Battle of Hogwarts was only a little fistfight, in the way that hippogriffs are only a bit tetchy. In short, it’s bloody brilliant.

Remus pulls away too soon, hesitation on his face now. “Was that alright?”

“More than,” Sirius smiles broadly as he reaches his hand forward, his body full of spreading slow heat that could keep him warm on even the coldest winter day. Remus takes Sirius’s hand in his, threading their fingers together, and even that has Sirius’s heart hammering against his chest, free now. “We could have been doing this all this while.”

“Maybe,” Remus says softly. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking a little time to figure things out.”

“We can do it together, can’t we?”

“Yes,” Remus smiles. He brings a hand up to Sirius’s face, stroking a thumb over his cheekbone. Remus’s palm is slightly callused, rough in the gentlest way, and Sirius does not think that he will ever tire of it. “Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a day in a sinus headache-induced haze and I'm quite happy with it, but please let me know if you find any major typos. Find me on tumblr at greywarde!


End file.
